by Trevor Mayes | Sep 2, 2019 | Action Lines, Dialogue, Modern Craft, Writing
Barking up the wrong tree Sometimes, it’s the easy things that can trip you up in a script. Take yelling and screaming, for instance. Seems like it would be an easy thing to indicate, but there are some common problems I’m seeing in scripts that are...
by Trevor Mayes | Aug 27, 2019 | Dialogue, Modern Craft, Writing
Streamline Screenwriting is all about streamlining things. Any redundancies have to go. Such is the case with interruptions. And I’m seeing this mistake a lot: DON’T DO THIS TED Gloria, I can’t be in all places at onc– ...
by Trevor Mayes | Aug 16, 2019 | Formatting, Modern Craft, Text Messaging, Writing
Superman, I defy you! I’m a big fan of David Trottier, AKA “Dr. Format” and his books, “The Screenwriter’s Bible” and “Dr. Format Tells All.” I’m also really impressed by Christopher Riley’s book, “The...
by Trevor Mayes | Jul 17, 2019 | Punctuation, Scene Headings, Writing
CUCKOO FOR COLONS I’m seeing things like this a lot lately: MONTAGE: — Gail washes dishes. — Gail does laundry. — Gail collapses on her bed. Why is there a colon after MONTAGE? NEVER put a colon after a scene heading like MONTAGE or SEQUENCE OF...
by Trevor Mayes | Jul 9, 2019 | Characters, Writing
Foot, meet hornet nest So there are a few screenwriting groups on Facebook that I belong to. In one of them, a concerned writer had posted an excerpt of a script reader’s review that said, “Why does the character need to be Asian?” The writer was...
by Trevor Mayes | Jun 17, 2019 | Proofreading, Quick Quiz, Writing
Riddle me this You know those puzzles where you’re shown a picture and told there are a bunch of things wrong with it? Well, this is the screenwriting version of that puzzle, and you get to play detective! In the following short scene, there are a number of...